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Posts Tagged ‘government spending’

The governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the governor’s dog, then bites the governor. The governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie Bambi and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

He calls animal control. Animal control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 for testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the state $200 for testing it for diseases. The governor goes to the hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and getting his bite wound bandaged.

The running trail gets shut down for six months while the California Fish and Game Department conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals. The governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a ‘coyote awareness program’ for residents of the area. The Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

The governor’s security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training, re: the nature of coyotes. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) protests the coyote’s relocation and files a $5 million suit against the state.

The governor of Texas is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and tries to attack him and his dog. The governor shoots the coyote with his state-issued pistol and keeps jogging.

As of Thursday, 23 November 2012, the last day for which figures are available, the national debt stood at $15,435,694,556,033.29, and that’s only $199,422,676,240.51 higher than it was on 20 January 2012, the beginning of the third year of Mr Obama’s term.

And the national debt is still $290,282,803,488.23 lower than the amount it would have to be to match the amount added under President Bush.

Assuming that the additions to the national debt continue at the same rate as they have since the beginning of President Obama’s third year in office, he will have tied President Bush’s national debt addition — which took him eight years to accomplish, it should be noted — on 13 April 2012. I was snarkily hoping he’d tie the record on April 15th, income tax day, but 15 April 2012 falls on a Sunday this year, and income taxes are now due on April 16th.

Still, if the debt will manage to accumulate just slightly less rapidly, maybe President Obama can hit that number on the 16th! That should give him a goal for which to strive.